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Truth is Important
Based on a true story, Daughter of Warriors follows a young Osage woman whose journey is marked by family devotion, forced assimilation, oil wealth, violence, and the enduring search for safety. What inspired you to build the novel around her story?
I grew up in Kansas City where my mother’s best friend – and my Godmother – was a beautiful, generous Osage woman. I adored her. Because of the oil found on the Osage reservation, she was very rich. As an Osage woman she was the target of racism. As a wealthy woman she was the target of fortune seekers. As an orphan and only child, she was alone trying to fight both. When she died in her early forties, I was a typically dramatic — and completely devastated — teenager, and promised her that one day I would write her story. When that time finally came and I started doing research, one of my early discoveries was a newspaper story in the Milwaukee Sentinel, “America’s Richest Indian Heiress Dies of Too Much Money.” It was as racist as it sounds. It was about her mother, Mary. I knew then that I had to write Mary’s story first. Mary is my protagonist, Lucy, in DAUGHTER OF WARRIORS.
The novel vividly portrays Osage life, the oil boom, and the Reign of Terror. What kind of research did you undertake to ensure those events were represented with care and authenticity?
I did research for years. I went to Pawhuska, the capital of Osage County, Oklahoma, and spoke to many. I went to Kansas City (I live in LA now) to revisit the places where the story takes place. I ran everything past my Godmother’s daughter, who is active in Osage and Indigenous issues generally. I spent a very long time online following any thread I could find. And I am now the owner of dozens of books I ordered and read about the Osage, about Native American Boarding Schools, about this country’s First People, and, of course, the Roaring Twenties in Kansas City, where I first encountered the woman who was to become my narrator, Loula Long Combs.
A word about Loula: I fell in love with this indomitable Kansas Citian at about the same time I was learning how strongly many Indigenous People object to the idea of others telling their stories. Loula became my narrator to make it clear that while the story is written by a white woman, I don’t pretend to understand what Lucy— or any other Native American — experienced. But history, as it’s taught in most schools and written in most books, doesn’t truthfully tell the colonization story — or how completely prejudice continues today. And truth is important. It’s the only way we can change the future.
If readers finish the novel remembering one idea or emotion, what do you hope it is?
That, contrary to what we’ve been taught — and seen in most movies and TV series — Colonizers and Settlers weren’t the good guys. Native Americans were here first. They believed God was in everything: rocks and mountains, seas and rivers, all living creatures. They honored everything accordingly. They had sophisticated trade systems with other tribes and Nations. They had a sophisticated culture that worked well for them — but it wasn’t OUR culture. We took their land and killed nearly all of them as we took it. Yes, they fought back. Of course they did. But arrows are no match for bullets. I want readers to realize that colonization was cruel. That white people considered the First People less than human and treated them accordingly. That the way we treat Indigenous People still is unconscionable.
What is the next book that you are working on, and when will it be available?
I’m now writing my Godmother’s story and calling it, at least for now, COYOTE’S EYES. Her mother, frightened for her child’s safety, sent her to a Catholic Boarding School in California. She lived in California for nearly twenty years, allowing me to tell stories of the Tongva tribe and of old Hollywood before she returns to Kansas City. It should be available by the middle of next year.
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Seeking sanctuary in 1920s Kansas City, Lucy marries Edward Walsh, an Irish lawyer who promises protection amidst the city’s thriving jazz scene and the powerful Pendergast political machine. But safety is an illusion, and the shadows of Oklahoma follow her, claiming those she loves and threatening her young daughter, Nevie. Caught between her spiritual heritage and the sophisticated wickedness of a world that views her as a “savage,” Lucy must make an agonizing choice to ensure her daughter’s survival.
In this gripping tale of loss and legacy, one woman must navigate the quicksand of corruption and bigotry to protect her heritage-and her child.
Daughter of Warriors
Daughter of Warriors, by Kimberly Kirkland Seidman, is a historical fiction novel based on a true story, following Lucy Walsh, a young Osage woman whose life is shaped by family love, forced assimilation, oil wealth, violence, and the constant search for safety. Told through Loula Long Combs, a woman looking back on Lucy’s life with affection and regret, the book moves from Lucy’s childhood on the Osage reservation to the dangers that follow her into adulthood, marriage, motherhood, and Kansas City society. At its heart, this is a story about survival, but also about what it costs to survive when the world keeps taking from you.
What I enjoyed most was how patient Seidman is with Lucy’s interior life. The novel doesn’t rush her pain, and it does not flatten her into a symbol. She’s frightened, proud, tender, guarded, lonely, and sometimes frustrating in ways that feel deeply human. I appreciated that the book gives equal weight to the small moments, like horses, family meals, childhood friendships, and quiet prayers, because those details make the later losses land harder. The historical fiction genre works well here because Seidman uses story to make history feel close. Not safely tucked away in a textbook. Close enough to hurt.
I also found myself thinking a lot about Loula as the narrator. That choice gives the book a reflective layer, almost like listening to someone confess what she understood too late. There is guilt in her voice, but also care, and that gives the novel a steady emotional pulse. At times, the book is heavy, especially in its treatment of boarding schools, racism, murder, and the predatory greed surrounding Osage headrights. But I didn’t feel the heaviness was careless. Seidman seems intent on showing how violence can be public and private at the same time, how it can live in laws, polite rooms, newspapers, marriages, and silence. That is a hard idea, and the novel sits with it.
I would recommend Daughter of Warriors to readers who appreciate historical fiction with moral weight, emotional depth, and a strong sense of place. It will especially appeal to those interested in Osage history, Native American stories, early twentieth-century America, and character-driven novels about trauma, memory, and resilience. This isn’t a light read, but it’s a worthwhile one. It feels like the kind of book you finish quietly, then keep thinking about afterward.
Pages: 520 | ASIN : B0H3WTRV44
The Grasshopper Lost Its Wings
The Grasshopper Lost Its Wings is a historical fiction novel with strong elements of romance, immigrant drama, and political suspense. It follows Chapu, a poor young juice vendor in Mexico City, and Tere, a university student from a wealthier family, as their tender love story becomes tangled in class pressure, family expectations, the assassination of Luis Donaldo Colosio, exile, guilt, and the long ache of becoming someone new in another country. At its heart, this is a story about love, survival, and the heavy cost of chasing a life that keeps asking you to leave pieces of yourself behind.
I liked the way the novel refuses to keep love simple. Chapu and Tere’s relationship begins with sweetness, saved parking spots, fresh juice, inside jokes, music, and that bright feeling of being seen. Then the world crowds in. Money matters. Class matters. Politics matters. Fear matters. I liked that the author lets those pressures build slowly instead of treating them like background noise. Mexico City feels alive in the book, full of traffic, food, myth, old wounds, family rules, and sudden beauty. The use of Mexica, Nahua, Totonac, and Mayan legends gives the story a larger shape, as if the characters are living inside both modern history and older stories about fate, sacrifice, transformation, and loss.
I also found the author’s choices ambitious, sometimes almost overflowing. The book moves from campus romance to political conspiracy to immigrant survival story, and that gives it a wide emotional range. Some scenes are intimate and warm, while others are tense, brutal, or deeply sad. Chapu’s journey in the United States was especially effective for me because it shows success as something complicated. He makes money. He builds a life. He finds chosen family. But he is still lonely, still afraid, still carrying Mexico in his bones. That felt honest. I did sometimes feel the novel wanted to do many things at once, but I also respected that largeness. Life is messy, and this book leans into the mess instead of smoothing it out.
I would recommend The Grasshopper Lost Its Wings to readers who enjoy historical fiction that blends romance, political history, family drama, and immigrant experience. It will especially appeal to readers interested in Mexico in the 1990s, cross-class love stories, and novels where personal choices are shaped by forces much larger than the characters themselves. This is not a light romance, even when it is romantic. It is a reflective, sorrowful, and heartfelt novel about what people survive, what they regret, and what they finally have to release.
Pages: 291 | ASIN : B0GRVPKKX6
The Atmosphere of War
Sawadika American Girl follows an American teenager in Vietnam War-era Bangkok, as music, first love, and shared sorrow help her find a place for grief, longing, and belonging. What was the inspiration for the setup of your story?
Most people aren’t aware that during the Vietnam War, Thailand served as a major US military outpost, with over eight military bases scattered throughout the kingdom. In addition, thousands of American families lived in Bangkok with fathers who worked for the American Embassy, USAID, the CIA, the US Military, and as private contractors. All in direct or indirect support of the war effort. On top of that, in 1968, the year my novel takes place, nearly 5,000 GI’s were pouring into Bangkok each month on R&R, bringing their turmoil with them. This created a ‘little America’ that was complex and combustible and often at odds with Thai sensibilities and culture. Having grown up in Thailand, I understood these underlying tensions and knew it was fertile ground for a story. Making it a coming-of-age story with a 17-year-old female protagonist struck me as a powerful and unexpected way to shed light on this overlooked pocket of history.
Music feels central to Piper’s emotional life; how did you approach writing piano as both technique and feeling?
Music anchors Piper emotionally in a world that doesn’t make sense. The act of playing the piano becomes a private space where she works out her emotions. Her piano teacher is a Thai Prince who had studied with the great Chilean pianist Claudio Arrau. Arrau’s technique was legendary for centering the body for maximum emotional expression. This is what the Prince teaches Piper. Her efforts to master this technique symbolize her struggle to come to terms with what is going on in her life.
The character of the Thai Prince who studied with Arrau is based on a piano teacher I had. There was a vibrant classical music scene in Bangkok at this time. Renowned musicians had Bangkok on their concert tours. This made sense because the Thai King was a talented jazz musician and composed his own music. And as a young girl, the Queen studied classical piano in Paris. I love that thread of the story because no one expects it, but it is absolutely true.
Jack and Piper’s relationship is brief but deeply affecting. What did you want their connection to reveal about war, loneliness, and belonging?
Life is always precious. But war, even the atmosphere of war, perverts that value, making life more precious and less precious at the same time. Piper and Jack experience this intensity from different vantage points, but each is tuned in to the sense of loneliness and dislocation that proximity to war brings. Most of the story unfolds during a single week, about the length of a soldier’s R&R. Under such conditions, time stretches. Three, four, or even five days together mean everything. That perception of time is woven into the fabric of their relationship.
How did you balance the intimate story of Piper’s coming of age with the larger historical forces surrounding her?
The bulk of the novel unfolds over a single week in 1968. That is on purpose. The assassinations of MLK and Robert Kennedy had happened, the Tet Offensive had occurred, and the casualty rate for soldiers and civilians in Vietnam was at a high point. All of that darkened the mood for Americans working in Bangkok. There were tensions with the Thai government. As a dependent, this increased the pressure for Piper to behave a certain way and not put a foot wrong. That kind of control is at odds with an individual’s ability to come of age, which is by definition about asserting one’s independence in a way that produces some kind of personal and intimate transformation. This put Piper on a collision course with the forces around her.
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One night, Piper ditches the American Teen Club to party with an older crowd. Sparks fly when she meets Jack, a 19-year-old GI on R&R from Vietnam. Defying the Army’s non-fraternization policy, they pledge to spend his leave together. As the hypocrisy of the war closes in on them, Jack’s name surfaces in a drug investigation and Piper discovers a disturbing truth about her father, forcing both to decide what they are willing to risk for a few more days together.
Sawadika American Girl is the story of a young American woman coming-of-age on the periphery of a brutal, unjust war.
